Mother in love-child mystery denies that senior Labour figure is the father

The mother of a child who has been supported financially by a prominent
broadcaster has denied that the real father is a senior Labour Party figure.

By Tim Walker

6:30AM BST 13 Oct 2010

After Mandrake's disclosure that a DNA test had established that a well-known broadcaster is not the father of a child he had been financially supporting for six years, its mother has denied the feverish speculation that the real father is a senior figure in the Labour Party.

The child's mother, a national newspaper journalist who cannot be named because of a court injunction, tells me that the real father is not a public figure. She adds that he is still coming to terms with the news, of which he had apprised three months ago.

"It was a massive shock and it's going to take him a while, so it's not fair to talk about it at the moment," she said at her home. When I showed her my story, she laughed, but would not comment. An injunction was obtained after the child's birth preventing the story ever being told, in order to protect the child and the identity of the broadcaster who had an extra-marital affair with the mother.

"I can't say anything about it," the mother said. "I have to protect my child and, also, I'd be breaking the terms of the injunction. If I start talking about it now, it will open the floodgates, and make it a story and it'll be splashed everywhere.

"I haven't breathed a word about this for three months. I've kept my mouth shut and I'm going to have to keep it like that for now, for the father's sake and for my child.

The broadcaster, who has been named on the internet and has been the subject of a great deal of innuendo in newspapers, had agreed to contribute towards the costs of bringing up the child after he was pursued by the mother's solicitors.

Over the weekend, he had seemed relaxed about the result of the DNA test and it was not obvious that he would be seeking financial redress from the mother.